Italian's do it Better/ Ettore Sottsass

Ettore Sosstass in 2006, photographed by J.Emilio Flores, His famous Memphis piece

Vases for Bisotti designed by Ettore Sottsass

Totem series designed by Ettore Sottsass

Totem series designed by Ettore Sottsass

Memphis piece and Enorme Telephone designed by Ettore Sottsass

Memphis piece, Vase and Olivetti typewriter by Ettore Sottsass

Vases and Vessels by Ettore Sottsass

Memphis pieces by Ettore Sottsass

Memphis pieces by Ettore Sottsass

Vases by Ettore Sottsass

Enamel plates by Ettore Sottsass

Sketches/ Designs by Ettore Sottsass

Sketches/ Designs by Ettore Sottsass

It was in the 1990’s a part of my Design Degree that I first studied quite intensively the Post Modern Movement, In the 90’s we were actually still really going through it and some would argue we still are, Post Modernism refers to a point of departure for works of literature, drama, architecture, cinema, journalism, and design. The movement of Postmodernism really began with architecture, as a response to the perceived blandness, hostility, and Utopianism of the Modern movement. Modernist Ludwig Mies van der Rohe is associated with the phrase "less is more"; in contrast Post Modernists say, "Less is a bore."

The 1980’s was such a powerful decade in the way when we look back but in the minimalist 1990’s we almost looked at this work in shock and horror, It was too close to appreciate. The 1980’s had been so radical, in the 1990’s we came out of the 80’s a bit shell shocked and dazed by it’s boldness and tenacity. At school I remember studying the work in particular of Ettore Sottsass (1917-2007) who was the famous Italian architect, designer and leader of the Post Modernism movement. In the height of it in 1981, Sottsass and an international group of young architects and designers had come together to form the Memphis Group. Memphis was launched with a collection of 40 pieces of furniture, ceramics, lighting, glass and textiles, which featured fluorescent colors, slick surfaces, intentionally lop-sided shapes and squiggly laminate patterns. It hit the marketplace with such force that it influenced the design of that decade on so many levels.

The interesting thing with Sottsass’s work is that although his work hit the mainstream in the 1980’s and is remembered so vividly with being connected with Memphis and seems so iconic with that era, his work right back to the 1950’s still holds the same vision, playfulness and life. I have recently been re connecting with that work, Here on this post I am sharing his range of totems, vases and enamel plates that he developed much earlier than the1980’s I think they are pure genius in their use of colors compositions and form.  

Sottsass was truly a giant of Design, as said by Paola Antonelli, the senior curator in the Museum of Modern Art’s department of architecture and design. “He had a capacity to really feel the times that he was living in and to change with them.”